Memories
by Emiko
Summary: The first part of a fanfic taking place over several years. I admit Snape + Hermione is unlikely, but give it a chance.


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter of any of the characters. This is entirely a work of fanfiction and does not involve any of the copyright holders. I, the authress, am not making any profit off of this. Um, please don't sue me? It's not like I have any money... I spent it all going to see the movie five times! And I mean no disparagement to Rowling or any of the copyright holders, it's just that the world of Harry Potter is so inspirational...  
  
This fanfic is currently incomplete. I'm going to add to it. It'll probably go one chapter for every year at Hogwarts. As it is the first chapter isn't finished, but if everyone goads me, I'll remember to finish it. (So R&R to make sure I don't forget!)  
  
This fic was inspired by another Snape/Hermione fic: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=75581  
  
(Tentatively titled)  
  
Memories  
  
---  
  
When I first saw her, she was standing up to be sorted by the Sorting Hat. I had heard her name before -- it was important for professors to know which students were coming from Muggle environments -- but this was the first moment I had actually seen her. She was wholly unremarkable. Just a small child with a confused face and a good deal of hair. They all looked like that on the first day, the only difference being the amount of hair. Wide-eyed, awestruck faces with a bit of fear mixed in, that fear melting away into relief as their assigned house is called and their new classmates break into cheers. It must really bolster a child's confidence to be cheered like that upon arriving at a new and unfamiliar place.  
  
On that first evening all the faces seem to blend together. I only ever need to make note of the new Slytherins, and then only because I am the head of House Slytherin and it helps to know which troublemakers are to come under my ward. The rowdiest House is Gryffindor by far, but there are always a few troublemakers in Slytherin as well.  
  
The first time I actually met her was something different altogether. It was when Harry Potter first walked into my classroom. I remember it well. I grilled Potter, positively grilled him, because he was the Great and Mighty Harry Potter, and it was my job to show him he really wasn't all that great and mighty after all. During the grilling, she raised her hand. As I demanded Potter to know things I really didn't expect any first-year walking into my room to know, she raised her hand. And waved it. And practically jumped out of her chair.  
  
Her. A first-year. A girl from a Muggle family who, by all rights, should have felt more nervous and out of place than anyone else in the room. I was impressed, though I didn't show it. She had walked in with Potter, and that was that.  
  
It would have been different if she'd never been with Potter.  
  
---  
  
  
  
I remember the first time I saw him. We didn't really meet, but I studied him as I studied all the other professors on that first night, wondering about them. He was one of the more interesting ones. They were all interesting, of course, because every Hogwarts professor has his or her own eccentricity, but he seemed so dark and forlorn on that first night. The other professors all seemed to have a smile on hand for the Sorting procedure. He spent the evening scowling as if to predispose us to hating him. I never did go so far as to hate him. I still don't quite understand why it's so important to him that all his students hate him.  
  
That first night really was something. I've always wondered if I wouldn't have made a better Ravenclaw. I'm certainly studious enough. But I suppose it's partly ambition that determines placement in Houses, and I'm not really ambitious academically. I'm more determined, and that's bravery, which is very much a Gryffindor trait.  
  
What did he think when he first saw me, I wonder? I was so much younger then, a different person. I tried harder to impress people. I remember that first day in Potions class when I begged for a chance to impress him. He never gave it to me.  
  
---  
  
Hermione sat alone in the bathroom, wiping tears from her eyes. It wasn't that she had any particular reason to be so sad, it was just that all this was so different from anything she had ever known before in her life. Sometimes she truly hated being at Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy was the worst, always chasing her and calling her "Mudblood" and saying she wasn't fit to attend Hogwarts. Who had given him the right, really?  
  
It didn't help that most of the other students seemed not to care. Maybe it was her imagination. Most of them ignored the taunts sent in her direction by the Slytherins and never stopped to think that such words might actually hurt her. She never let it show, of course, but the pain was there, always thinly veiled behind her eyes. Thank goodness she had Harry and Ron. They were always ready to defend her and point out how she (a Mudblood!) performed so much better than any of the other first years. Especially Draco Malfoy. She despised him so much she could scream!  
  
The tears were all cried out now. Hermione slipped out of the stall and went to the sink to wash her face. The water did her some good. It felt as if it was cleansing both her mind and spirit, wiping away the tarnish of her background. Not that Hermione had ever thought of it as a tarnish before, it was just that people were making it a point insult her, so she couldn't help but to give their words some credence in her innermost thoughts. She would never truly believe it, but the seeds had been sown and the doubt was there.  
  
Hermione pushed her way out of the bathroom and proceeded down the hallway towards the Gryffindor Common Room. It seemed that she had barely taken six steps when an agitated black form rounded the corner and rudely knocked her over. She lay sprawled on her derriere as the figure (who had immediately stopped, thank goodness) looked down in mild surprise. Hermione did not look up at first, feeling the tears rise to her face in a furious flush once again, afraid to face the black form which had intruded on her in such a manner.  
  
"Granger?"  
  
It was Professor Snape. Hermione couldn't think of a more awful person to run into at this point. She kept her gaze on his feet, refusing to make eye contact and let him see her. It had been too soon, too soon after she had willed those tears in the bathroom away; they had returned quickly, having only been pushed just slightly beneath the surface of her mind, ready for the slightest provocation to return, and Snape had been that provocation.  
  
His robes shuffled as he leaned over to offer her a hand up--a hand she refused. "Come on, now, get up off the floor, Granger. That's no place for you." The hand shook insistently.  
  
Figuring she had better not make him angry (lest he take points from Gryffindor and brand her more an outcast than she already was), Hermione slowly gave him her hand. A light tug and she was on her feet once again, but he did not release her at first. Hermione struggled slightly in an attempt to free herself.  
  
"You're bleeding."  
  
Hermione looked up then and noticed the redness on her hand. She must have scraped it on the stone when she fell. Small droplets of blood were forming on the surface of her skin, evidence of tiny pinprick wounds invisible for the naked eye. Snape was examining the wound more critically than she, holding her arm in an unnatural manner that caused her to whimper slightly. He ignored it if he heard.  
  
"It's not enough to send you to Madame Pomfrey," he concluded. "Come with me."  
  
She had little choice in the matter. Snape's grasp was inescapable for the small, 11-year-old girl. Even had she been older she would have found herself unable to break it. It was like iron, a slightly clammy, ice-tipped iron. As she stumbled along behind him, still trying to hold back her tears, she realized just how cold the tips of his fingers were. Her own hand seemed to burn in comparison.  
  
Snape dragged her to his office. Hermione truly did not want to go in. Surely he was going to find some excuse to take points from Gryffindor. He used every other opportunity to, so why not now?  
  
Yet he did not. He simply sat her down in his chair and went to his cupboard, returning with a silvery-green potion. "Hold out your wrist," he instructed, pouring a small amount of the potion onto a square of soft cloth. She did as she was told. "It might sting a moment."  
  
Hermione cringed as he dabbed the cloth over the wound. It did sting, but not terribly. When he was done, he capped the potion and set it down on his desk.  
  
"There we go, Granger. All better."  
  
Hermione cradled her wrist and finally looked up at him, uncertain of what to expect. He was not smiling. Had he been, it would no doubt have been a cruel smile, and a most unwelcome sight. Instead, his face was resigned to some sort of neutrality, eyes dull and slight frown tugging at the corners of his mouth in a motion that spoke more of fatigue than annoyance. At once the tired dullness was gone, replaced instead by a look of ferocious intensity. His eyebrows furrowed and his frown tightened as if to say, "Well, Granger?"  
  
Hermione didn't know what to say, though. She was still feeling frightened. Snape was not a man to make casual conversation with, and he was not easy to talk to at all. Her wet eyes blinked at him.  
  
Eventually, Snape seemed to give up on whatever it was he expected from her and let out a loud sigh. "You may go, Granger," he intoned. Hermione was more than happy to accommodate this request and scurry for the door.  
  
"Th-thank you, Professor Snape," she stammered quickly. She was about to escape when his voice stopped her.  
  
"Oh, and Miss Granger..."  
  
She immediately froze. "Yes?"  
  
"Try not to listen to the other students so much. Their opinions aren't worth your time."  
  
She clutched at her robes as she felt her heart rise in her chest. "Yes, sir!" she managed to squeak. A moment more and she was gone, feet pounding noisily on the ancient stones of Hogwarts. Snape listened to the sound as it echoed away into nothingness. Hopefully she would heed his advice better than he had in his days at Hogwarts.  
  
---  
  
I always knew Professor Snape wasn't evil. I had my doubts, of course -- that instance in the Quidditch match when Quirrell was hexing Harry's broom and I thought it was Snape was one such occasion -- but I always knew somehow that he had to have a good side to him. Dumbledore would never have allowed a truly evil person to teach at Hogwarts. Even all of those Defense of the Dark Arts teachers had their good points. Not to mention that Snape defended Harry on several occasions.  
  
In any event, I was surprised by that moment in the hallway, but not utterly shocked. Just surprised sufficiently enough that I never told anyone. Not Harry, and not Ron. It was my little secret in a way. I think it helped me stay at Hogwarts. It made things that much easier to know that someone as mean as Professor Snape could actually take a moment to care about someone other than Draco Malfoy and the Slytherins.  
  
I always wondered why it was he did that for me.  
  
---  
  
My days at school were not easy. I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be the hero -- I wanted to be James Potter. Oh, how I despised the way they taunted me day in and day out. They made it a daily ritual. Oh, there's Severus, let's go torture him for a while.  
  
It's only fair that I watch Potter's son suffer. If only he'd suffer as much as I did. Potter (the younger) and his father have that social finesse in common. That's something I never had. I don't think it's something I'll ever have, though I've always wanted it.  
  
Then again, that's not me. If I had that finesse I'd be a very different person today. Would I be any happier? Any more enlightened? I'm not sure. I think I probably wouldn't have become a Death-Eater, though. I did it in good part because I craved that kind of social environment my fellow Slytherins had promised me.  
  
I wonder if she knew I had been a Death-Eater when she lit my robes on fire at the Quidditch match? She never admitted the deed to me; I think she thought I didn't know. But I did know, I just never wanted to bring it up. It stung to be betrayed in that manner. I was mad for a little while, but it passed, and then I just felt empty. I very nearly considered taking points away from Gryffindor for that fiasco. I never did. Why? Am I so confused a person that I can't keep my head straight? Maybe. Perhaps.  
  
Whatever the case was, I did get my revenge by taking it out on her the next year. I stalwartly refused to show her any pity again, and that was punishment enough in my mind. 


End file.
